I HATE SANDWICHES

I don't like being trendy and hating on celebs, but delivering to him sucked. I didn't exactly idolize the Globetrotters when I was a kid, but I remembered them fondly and Curly was like their president in my mind. I guess because of that he went from being just an ordinary crappy customer into being this nebulous cloud of disappointing feelings every time I took something to his house.

One time he answered the door wearing an undershirt, boxers, and socks and then without saying a word walked straight back in to the living room to continue watching whatever game was on the TV. He didn't look up until the first quarter ended. (Seriously, what could possibly be so damn exciting about the first fucking quarter? Nothing, that's what.) And even then he just reached out his hand with the money so I could come over and take it instead of, you know, getting up off the couch and handing it to me. Then he just kind of mumbled, "Alright," and sat back down to tear into his chow. I had to let myself out. There was less than half a dollar in tip, too.

I think the whole thing was too complex or contradictory for me to process satisfactorily. All of the questions I had about what was going on with that guy just led to some pretty depressing inferences. I had to stop thinking about it.

hillsy Wrote:
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> You always come back to the 'za.

It's been over a decade and I still haven't.

I suspect it might have something to do with this one lady I delivered to. The comments on the ticket said, "Door to fence on right side, open back porch, knock on sliding glass door." So I did. A voice told me to let myself in. And there she was. All 500lbs of her spread out on a queen sized bed from which she clearly never moved. In an utterly soundless exchange her eggplant looking hands took the two extra-large pizzas and liter of soda from me and passed over a handful of cash in return. Five dollars in tip.

Gcrush, if you're not a replicant, then your sandwich aversion indicates that you have a brain tumor or you're a communist. Or both. But your story about Curley made up for it. Fuck him and David Carradine.

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Matthewalt &quot;I actually kinda LIKE that approach! You know: let's make a TOY. Remember those? Products designed to be played with without breaking? DO YOU REMEMBER, LOVE?!&quot;

I feel lucky in that the several years I spun 'za, I literally spun them. I was a pizza cook only (and a damn good one, at that). Never once did I deliver a single pie...and only on a very rare occasion did I man the cash register and interact with a customer. I actually DO like talking to people and helping them out (hell, I'm the rocket scientist equivalent of a tech support guy now), but experiences like the one with Curly terrify me. I mean, I'd be disappointed that it was Curly who was doing me like that...but absolutely regardless of who it was, if I were doing the delivering, he'd end up either wearing the food, or I'd simply dip my balls in it immediately prior to delivery.

I used to be a delivery driver for a sub shop when I was 18. You do not want to offend the delivery driver.
-Mason

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Matthewalt &quot;I actually kinda LIKE that approach! You know: let's make a TOY. Remember those? Products designed to be played with without breaking? DO YOU REMEMBER, LOVE?!&quot;

Lemme try to make up for it:
One time, a friend of mine and myself went to a local pizza joint where I worked (I was off duty at the time). Now, that friend's ex-boyfriend was one of my co-workers, and he was working at the time. Things weren't too neat and tidy between the two. I did my best to stay out of it. I was there just to say hi to the crew, enjoy being there while NOT working, and to chat with my friend. Anyway, my friend ordered a pizza, and when her pizza came out, she noticed rather quickly that her pizza had BBQ sauce, not tomato sauce on it!

Roger Wrote:
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> Gcrush, if you're not a replicant, then your
> sandwich aversion indicates that you have a brain
> tumor or you're a communist.

I've been accused of wearing red. Mostly by dirty sandwich gobblers.

> But your story about Curley made up for it.

We used to deliver to a couple of pro-wrestlers in the area, too. I can't remember what acronyms they played for or even their names now. One of them reminded me of a younger Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Anyway. The HJD lookin' dood used to not-at-all-discreetly ask that the drivers bring him a case of beer with the pizza. Which most of us did as he'd tip around $10 because he'd already be too drunk to care that we kept the change. One Friday night he phoned in his order and even though we told him it'd be at least 30 minutes he drove down to the kitchen before his pizza was even out of the oven and started pounding on the pick-up window screaming he was going to kick Harvey's ass for fucking up his order. Harvey had already gone home. The manager was freaked out and wanted to call the cops. We talked to him through the window instead and told him his pizza was coming out of the oven. He said, "Wait. What time is it?" We told him the time and his demeanor changed immediately. He slipped $50 to us and said, "Can one of you guys grab me a case of beer from the gas station across the street? I'm afraid to go in there right now." One of the other guys accommodated him and got a $20 tip out of it.

We also delivered to James Best a couple of times but the folks at his house were always classy and tipped well.

Mmm... I once installed a high speed internet connection for one of Paul McCartney's former drummers. The guy was nice enough, but his house had a massive rat infestation. I learned this after I opened the attic access hatch in the master bedroom closet and it rained a metric ton of rat feces all over the place. The way I was standing the bulk of it missed me and landed all over his wardrobe. That actually reaffirmed my faith in human decency as he spent a lot of time apologizing to me.

Man, now that I think about it that line of work was awful. Way worse than the pizza stuff. Working in all those shoddily built homes, constantly seeing the dirty and cluttered lives most people live in secret, getting slapped in the face with gay-porn pop-ups while checking the connection on the fire marshal's home computer...

mcfitch Wrote:
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> Is this why you won't come to the Summit? :-(

No, it's all logistical. I promise I will actually be down with one of your bacon monsters when I eventually make it up there.

Sanjeev Wrote:
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> I feel lucky in that the several years I spun 'za,
> I literally spun them.

We were such a small operation that everyone pulled some kind of double duty. During the afternoon I would take calls, prep, cook, deliver, and clean as needed. At night time we staffed up and then I'd just do the delivering. I found none of the different jobs to be particularly enjoyable, though delivering was an emotional roller coaster. You think people would be happy to see the guy bringing their food, but no, that's not always the case.

We had a strict zero tolerance policy for monkeying with food and a couple of people got fired on the sport for mischievous behavior. On the other hand, when I worked in houses and businesses doing their internet stuff we had next to zero oversight for retaliation against dickhead customers. One of my colleagues on a job with me took a dump in someone's attic because they wouldn't let him access the restroom when he asked. Eerily, nothing ever came of it.

hillsy Wrote:
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> You eat pizza out of politeness? What about
> sandwiches? Does your politeness know any bounds?

I have a pretty firm rule of eating what I'm served without complaint when I am a guest. As a result I have ingested both terrible and bizarre foods. But it never bothered me because I could honestly appreciate the effort people made. On the other hand, being excluded from the decision making process amongst peers is another issue entirely. I resent the shit out of being pressured to conform when I'm footing the bill. To me, that's the opposite of good manners.

But...he doesn't like sandwiches. I don't think it has anything to do with the sandwich's country of origin.
-Mason

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Matthewalt &quot;I actually kinda LIKE that approach! You know: let's make a TOY. Remember those? Products designed to be played with without breaking? DO YOU REMEMBER, LOVE?!&quot;

> reminded me of a younger Hacksaw Jim Duggan.
> not-at-all-discreetly
> screaming he was going to kick Harvey's ass
> freaked out and wanted to call the cops
> I'm afraid to go in there right now."

> one of Paul McCartney's former drummers.
> it rained a metric ton of rat feces
> actually reaffirmed my faith in human decency
> the dirty and cluttered lives most people live in secret,
> getting slapped in the face with gay-porn pop-ups

G, why is EVERY story you tell somehow epically riveting? I mean, I can recognize the essential banality of these events, but reading your posts is on a different level than the actual content of the story. Do these things seem so intense at the time, or does the metamorphosis happen when you write it down?

Warrhead Wrote:
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> Just saw these on The Colbert Report and thought
> of this thread. Enjoy!
>
> [www.theepochtimes.com]

I can't imagine why, but I got about a half dozen emails in the last two days with that Sandwich-in-a-Can monstrosity. For (obvious?) reasons I find the concept to be more vulgar than the Pussy-in-a-Can novelty sex toys that Japan pioneered. It heralds the end of civilization as we know it.

asterphage Wrote:
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> > Gcrush Wrote:
> > a bunch of utter nonsense
>
> G, why is EVERY story you tell somehow epically
> riveting? I mean, I can recognize the essential
> banality of these events, but reading your posts
> is on a different level than the actual content of
> the story. Do these things seem so intense at the
> time, or does the metamorphosis happen when you
> write it down?

I suffer from excessive hyperbole. Years of draconian schooling and heavy pharmaceuticals have done nothing to abate it. Nagging exacerbates it. Flatter sets it off churning with the force of a Kodiak tryst in May. Like an alligator in the bathtub, ignoring it is the most prudent defense.

Er, in all seriousness I tend to process events after I have finished experiencing them and the fun is in the retelling. (I thought everyone was like this but I've been told otherwise.) When I'm in the moment things sometimes move in slow-motion, like the booby-trapped avalanche of rat feces I tripped. I could see all the individual soldiers in the turd-army suspended in midair for a few moments right before they tried unsuccessfully to blitzkrieg my face. But it was only afterwords that I could really laugh about how the indignities my person suffered paled in comparison to the devastation wrought upon Paul McCartney's former drummer's wardrobe. And how totally pissed his wife was going to be when he had to explain why all her pajamas were at the cleaners. Haw.

Erik Sjoen Wrote:
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> Speaking of Tortas, if you're ever in SF, call me
> and I will take you for one of these:
>
> [brokeassstuart.com]-
> from-thats-it-market-cheap-and-girthy/

I accidentally ate something like that once. I grew up around a certain type of smashed sammich colloquially known as "A Cuban". (With the occasional "media noche" thrown in for good measure.) I don't know how authentic they were. The few Red Badge of Communism Expats I met would neither confirm nor deny the homeland origins of these wafer-thing concoctions, but one guy thought the idea was funny considering how little bread was available to eat when he was growing up under Uncle Castro's mindful guidance. So, yeah. Anyway.

I always assumed a Cuban sammich was a Cuban sammich. And you know what they say about assumptions? They make an ass out of your small intestine.

I was visiting some friends from California in one of the satellite burbs of Houston that was oddly populated with "ethnic types" for being so pseudo-affluent according to all the kindly white folk that bragged about being from the place. We decided to roll out for some breakfast grubbing to a local mercado that was supposedly all up balls deep in Oaxaca cuisine. It had been years since I'd scarfed a Cuban and when I saw them on the menu I settled on it right away. When I ordered the auntie in the hairnet behind the counter squinched up her face and warned me it would take about twenty minutes to cook it. I thought that sounded strange and, in retrospect, it should have been a red flag.

See, the Cubans I was used to eating were boring affairs of cold items that were made sensual in serving because they were basically hot pressed into something about as thick as a hand of poker. They shouldn't take longer then two minutes to prepare because: A) there's nothing to cook; and B) they'd be completely carbonized into ash if you sat on the press longer than 90 seconds.

Well, the monster they eventually brought out looked about like the torta in the link above. It was so fucking stacked with garbage that I could not get my extra large mitts wrapped around it to lift it up to my mouth. It would have been easier to pick up and wedge a light-duty truck tire between my teeth. I guess auntie already knew that. Which was why the Cuban sammich came with a side order of steak knifes and dental insurance.

That thing had deli meats, bistek, chopped hot dogs, two boiled eggs, and a lonely hamburger patty smothered under a head of lettuce, a small order of french fries, and some fried vegetable I couldn't properly describe aside from saying it was "green". It was swimming in a lake of butter and mayonnaise. The grass and guts of the sammich were being comedicaly and futilely fucked on both sides by buns that were the approximate size, shape, and consistency of a '88 Coupe DeVille's hubcaps.

My soul cried the whole forty minutes it took me to eat it. My friends from Cali laughed at the folly of my choice in order what they ordinarily thought of as a "family sandwich" all by myself. Not that it was enough to make them offer to help me with it. No. They were having too much fun for that.

On our way to the emergency room for my high colonic I described the nature of my misunderstanding to them. I assured them that in the crazy world I come from where real Cuban people live that Cuban sandwiches are generally benign, easily digested affairs of inconsequence. Their reply?